Ohio State Prepped for Big Ten Championships

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Feb. 22, 2018

Columbus, Ohio – The Ohio State track and field team will face off against the rest of the Big Ten this Friday and Saturday, Feb. 23-24, at the Big Ten Championships in Geneva, Ohio. For the sixth-straight year, the conference meet will be held at the Spire Institute.

The two-day meet will be streamed live on BTN2Go and FloTrack. On Monday evening (Feb. 26), tape-delayed coverage of the meet will air on the Big Ten Network at 8 p.m. ET.

Buckeye History at the Big Ten Championships The Ohio State men have won five Big Ten indoor championships and 131 individual/event titles since joining the Big Ten Conference in 1913, the last team title coming in 1993 under Russ Rogers.

At the last year’s Big Ten meet, Nick Gray, then a sophomore, broke his own meet record in the 200m dash on his way to winning his second-consecutive 200m dash B1G title with a readout of 20.58. Nick Demaline will be on the hunt for his first career B1G indoor title this weekend; he’ll throw the shot put on Friday at 5:30 p.m. ET. Ohio State has four other returning scorers from the 2017 B1G indoor meet – Alex Lomong (800m run), Asa Burke (4x400m relay), Cole Gorski (pole vault) and DaJuan Seward (triple jump). The men enter the meet ranked No. 19 in the latest USTFCCCA poll.

Rogers led the track and field program to new heights in the early 1990s as the Buckeyes claimed seven Top-4 finishes at the indoor championships from 1990-1996. Ohio State’s first title came in 1942 under Larry Snyder. Snyder guided the Scarlet and Gray to three-consecutive titles from 1948-1950.

The Ohio State women have won two Big Ten indoor titles, the most recent coming in 2015, and claimed a third-place finish at the 2017 B1G meet with 83 points. The women have scooped up 74 individual/event titles since the Big Ten meet started in 1978.

Sade Olatoye had a monster 2017 B1G meet winning titles in the shot put and weight throw to become the first woman in program history to achieve that feat. Following the meet, Olatoye was named the Female Field Athlete of the Championships joining the likes of Donica Merriman (2000 & 2001), Bridgette Tate (1988) and Christina Manning (2011 & 2012), all three of whom were named the Female Track Athlete of their respective championship meets.

In addition to Olatoye’s title in 2017, Karrington Winters claimed her first-career individual B1G title in the 600m run with a school record time of 1:27.60. Annie Ubbing, who took seventh place in the same event with a readout of 1:30.47, will make the trip to Geneva, Ohio, this week as well for the Buckeyes.

Manning owns the current meet record in the 60-meter hurdles (7.95). Two Ohio State indoor championship records have been retired: Diane Dixon’s 300-yard run in 1983 (33.83) and Tate’s 60-yard hurdle performance in 1987 (7.78). The 2015 title run was aided by Katie Borchers’ school and meet record of 2:04.31 in the 800m run.